


Taking this one step at a time

by SparrowFlight246



Series: One foot in front of the other [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gun Violence, Gunshot Wounds, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Paralysis, but it turns out relatively uplifting I promise you, oh the drama is real with this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 02:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21092060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowFlight246/pseuds/SparrowFlight246
Summary: Tony’s not unfamiliar with the concept of paralysis, after Rhodey. They encountered that bump in the road a few years ago, and they worked through it, eventually coming out better than they went in.However, when the concept of paralysis is used in relation to Peter, things end up shifting more than they ever seemed to last time.Tony shifts with them.And hopefully, eventually, they’ll come out better than they went in with this one, too.





	Taking this one step at a time

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks! Hope you’re all having a good day so far. 
> 
> Alright, super quick note before you start: this story does deal with gunshot wounds, paralysis, and the aftermath of both. I did quite a bit of research for this story and did my best to approach the topic with as much respect as possible, but if you notice that I messed anything up in here, please don’t hesitate to let me know so I can correct my mistakes, okay? It’s really important to me that I do this right. Thank you!
> 
> Thank you so much for clicking on this story in the first place, title from One Foot by Walk the Moon, and I really hope you enjoy the read :)

“Kid, you still with me?”

_You better still be with me._

“With you.”

The breath that escapes him is one of relief, but there’s no denying the exasperation tucked behind it, sharpened by worry and edged with concern. “Good god, child, you should know the drill by now,” Tony says, already scanning the streets below him for any flash of red and blue as he flies. He’s still a few minutes out from Peter’s location and he knows it, but the sky is quickly growing darker in the late October evening, and he’s not about to risk missing the kid in the shadow of a dumpster or some shit because the brilliant little dumbass couldn’t pick a better, more visible place to collapse in. It’s like he doesn’t even try. “You get hurt, I ask for a status report, and then you _respond._ I get a new grey hair for every goddamn second you stay quiet.”

Peter’s voice is breathy and faint across the comms, but it’s still present, shaky yet forcibly light. “Or you’re just getting old.”

_”Hey,”_ Tony says, offense feigned in his voice. “Respect your elders. Especially when they’re currently en route to rescue your sad little ass.” 

There’s a faint huff of a laugh. “My bad.”

Shit, not even severe blood loss and a bullet through the stomach can take the sass out of this kid.

But even still, Tony knows there’s more to it than what Peter’s letting on. 

Peter’s gotten good at hiding the damage, but that doesn’t mean the damage isn’t still there, and with a gunshot wound to rival the one that took down J.R. Ewing, the kid’s gotta be struggling. His focus flickers up to the vitals FRIDAY’s got listed just above the map in the corner of his vision, quietly checking on the kid’s status past the jokes and weak yet incredibly determined efforts to convince Tony and everyone else who might be listening that he’s absolutely, completely, _fine_ despite the hole through his abdomen. Peter will keep insisting against it until he’s blue in the face, but Tony knows better. 

Unfortunately, Tony is just a little too familiar with the fake it till you make it routine by now to be fooled.

His suspicions are confirmed with barely a glance. 

And _fuck,_ because that definitely is gonna make things harder in the long run. 

Even past the vaguely concerning numbers, Tony’s still not exactly sure what actually happened to land the kid on his ass in an abandoned alleyway with a gunshot wound and an anti-damsel complex as it did in the first place— Karen said something about a mugging gone south during patrol in the initial report, but somewhere in between summoning a suit and sending the command to prep the medbay, he missed the details.

However, looking at these vitals right now, Tony can fill in the blanks. 

That combined with the thinly veiled fragility and pain in Peter’s voice is enough to give him a pretty good idea of what they’re dealing with here. 

“So, you tried to make friends with an armed baddie again, did you? Is that what happened?” Tony says, angling left as FRIDAY points him in the right direction. He knows he’s got to keep the kid talking; the longer they can keep him conscious, the better his chances get and the farther into safe territory Tony’s own heart rate goes, so making sure Peter stays awake until he can get to him would definitely be a win right now. “I know it’s a hard pill to swallow, Pete, but not everyone in this world is going to like you. It’s just a sad fact of life.”

Peter huffs out another weak parody of a laugh. “Some people just don’t do kindness these days.”

Tony’s gut clenches as he watches Peter’s heart rate spike with the words— every breath seems to cause the kid more pain. “It probably didn’t help when he up and shot you, either.”

Peter hums in agreement. “That put a damper on things, yeah.”

God, this kid. 

He checks his location on the map tucked in the corner of the viewfinder one more time; he’s barely a minute out by now. Peter’s vitals are still flickering like hell, his heart rate climbing while his blood pressure drops, and Tony lets out a breath as he watches himself draw steadily closer to the flashing dot that marks Peter’s coordinates. 

In this momentary silence, Tony can just hear the sound of Peter’s breathing over the comms, can just barely hear how ragged yet carefully measured it sounds now that there are no words to hide it behind. Quietly, he counts the lengths of each inhale and exhale.

It takes him about thirty seconds to recognize the anti-anxiety breathing techniques he taught him last month, the night before a big test that Peter was stressed out about. 

And shit, the kid’s freaking. 

Tony takes a careful breath of his own as he checks the vitals again. There’s no avoiding the fact that they’re definitely still not good. Watching them like this, he can see how much blood Peter’s losing by the minute, how much pain he’s gotta be in, how bad his condition really is, and he knows that Peter’s gotta realize it too. 

He’s not sure if the shock is setting in or letting up. He’s not sure which one he’s hoping for. 

His expression softens with concern as a sigh escapes him, still listening to the kid’s breathing. “How you feeling, bud?” he asks, gentler now, more serious. “For real. Talk to me, kiddo.”

“Peachy.” 

“Peter,” Tony says, and he can hear something give in the kid’s sigh. 

“Shitty,” Peter admits, and his voice is shakier now than it was before. “The whole bullet wound thing… it’s just not doing it for me, I gotta say.”

Tony barks out a mirthless breath of a laugh, closing the last few hundred feet between him and Peter. “Me neither, kid,” he says, voice soft. “Hold on, I’m here.” 

The kid is still in the same alleyway he got shot in, huddled up in the shadow of a dumpster with his back to the brick wall behind him and legs sprawled out in front of him. When Tony touches down on the concrete in front of him, Peter’s head lifts, the eye lenses of the mask widening slightly from where they’d been hovering at half mast. 

“Oh, hey Mr Stark,” he says, offering a weak semblance of a wave before letting his hand thud down to his lap again. His abdomen gleams with crimson in the low lighting of the street light. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Tony disengages the helmet of the suit, crouching in front of the kid with a sigh that’s half exasperation and half tightly wound, long established fondness, the same fondness that is currently winding tighter and tighter into a coil of painfully present concern as he takes in the blood on the kid’s suit, the exhaustion in his voice, the wound through his stomach. “You, Peter, are going to be the end of me,” he says, bluntly. “And New York. And probably the world itself. I’m sure you’ve seen Tokyo’s obsession with Spider-Man by now. I mean, they have cartoons about you and everything.”

Peter lets his head rest back against the wall, blinking up at him. The eye lenses react accordingly. “Yeah, I have. They make me cuter than I am.” He sighs. “I appreciate that.”

The smile comes unbidden, soft and crinkling and gentle. “With that suit? I think they’re right on point.”

The kid exhales again. He seems a little more detached now than he did over the comms, as if Tony’s mere presence is enough to take a fraction of tension out of his posture, enough to give him the barest beginning of a reassurance that everything’s going to be okay. As if Tony being here means that he can finally relax again. Tony’s heart clenches something fierce when he realizes that. “Oh. That’s nice,” he says, weak and faint, but Tony can hear the smile in his voice anyway. 

Tony shakes his head, retracting one gauntlet so he can reach out and take Peter’s pulse for himself. He already knows the numbers, but feeling it helps give him a better idea of what they might be dealing with here, and some part of him is desperate just to have some sort of contact with the kid, give him any bit of comfort he can manage. Peter leans into his touch, Tony’s hand light against his throat, two fingers slipped under the edge of the mask to rest just beneath the kid’s jaw. 

“Yeah, that’s thready as hell,” Tony sighs after a moment, pulling away and re-engaging the gauntlet. Gently, he takes Peter’s hand and presses it back to the wound, where it was before he arrived; lightly reminding him to keep the pressure on and slow the bleeding in whatever ways they can.“We’ve gotta get you back to the compound. Cho’s already expecting you— it’d be rude to keep her waiting.”

“Of course,” Peter says. “Just common human decency.”

Tony squeezes the kid’s wrist once, tight and reassuring, before pulling away again. Carefully, he goes to scoop him up, but then Peter holds up a hand, stopping him.

“Um, just one thing before we go, though,” the kid says, and Tony pauses. 

He sits back on his heels, crouching on the dirty alleyway pavement with his arms slung over his knees. His helmet is still disengaged, and he finds himself wishing that this was a safe enough situation to take Peter’s mask off too, just so he can see the kid’s face, see what he’s thinking. He nods, watching with a soft kind of concern. “Shoot.”

Peter takes a careful inhale, and Tony realizes he’s gone back to his breathing exercises. “So, um, don’t freak out,” the kid starts with, his voice cautious, measured. He speaks like he’s been planning this conversation for a while now, even past the breathy weakness still tracing his words.

In Tony’s earpiece, FRIDAY tells him that Peter’s heart rate is spiking.

Something in him sharpens in careful, wary apprehension.

Tony’s eyebrows drop a fraction of an inch, pulling together as he steadies his gaze on Peter, gentle but prompting. “Go on.”

The kid seems to steel himself, tension balling up in his shoulders and a certain kind of nervousness presenting itself in his posture. His hands are shaking slightly in his lap. “Seriously, Mr Stark,” he says, and there’s a tremor to his voice now, hovering just beneath the words despite how steady they’re coming, and Tony’s jaw tightens. “I mean it. Don’t flip out on me, because then I’ll flip out on you, and that’s not going to end well for either of us.”

Tony keeps his expression determinedly neutral. “Just tell me, Peter.”

Peter swallows hard, bobbing his head in confirmation. His next inhale is shaky, wavering, even as his voice stays remarkably close to calm. “Um, okay. Um,” he pauses, and exhales, bracing himself. “Yeah. So, I, uh, I don’t exactly think I can feel my legs right now, Mr Stark.”

Tony catches his reaction a half an instant before it makes an appearance. 

“And I know it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Peter says quickly, before Tony can respond, his voice suddenly shaking harder than before. “I know that, and I’m trying not to panic too early because I know that, but I think I’m kind of panicking anyway, and I think I have been for kind of a while? Like, a while.” He stops for a breath, and he stutters hard on the inhale. “Yeah, I’m freaking out.” A weak, slightly hysterical laugh escapes him. “Guess I didn’t stick with my half of the deal. I’m s-sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry.”

Peter’s hands come up to his face, and he goes to try and wipe at his eyes, get to the tears that Tony can tell have been building, but he pulls up short a second later. “Oh, right,” he says, and the words come out trembling, on a sort of shuddering gasp that holds just enough of a sob to break a heart. “Mask.” 

And with that, Tony knows the kid’s about to fall apart.

Peter’s been sitting on this realization ever since he first got shot, sitting on all this worry and panic and every last one of the terrifying thoughts that had to be running through his brain, and he’s barely even let them show until now. Talking yourself out of an anxiety spiral is hard enough by itself, but talking yourself down from the kind of straight up panic that comes with the possibility of paralysis is something different, and Tony knows the toll that had to take on him. On top of that, he’s still got a fucking _gunshot wound_ to worry about, with a hefty helping of blood loss and shock on the side, which certainly can’t be helping matters either.

He’s already held on for so much longer than Tony ever would have in his situation.

Christ, the strength this kid possesses. 

“Peter,” Tony says, gently. 

His focus snaps to Tony’s face, so obviously trying to hold it together and honestly kind of failing but paying attention nonetheless. He gulps, slumped against the wall behind him, his limp legs sprawled across the pavement in front of him. The midsection of the suit is still soaked with blood, and the concrete he’s sitting on has collected a small puddle of gleaming red. “Yeah?” the kid says, and his voice breaks halfway through the word. 

Tony reaches out and sets a heavy hand on the back of the kid’s neck, squeezing with a gentle kind of fierceness. “Take a breath,” he reminds, and Peter sucks in an obedient, ragged inhale. The eye lenses of the mask are blown wide, and Tony knows how he’s watching him, analyzing his expression, waiting for a reaction so he knows how to react himself. He can feel him shaking under his hand.

Because, really, Tony knows the kid’s panicking even without him fessing up to it. It’s obvious in every suppressed shock running down his arms, in every hard swallow, in every shaky breath he takes. Peter’s trying like hell to keep himself together right now, but despite his efforts, his resolve is beginning to falter. 

Because, right now, Peter’s a boy trying to be a man in the face of something that terrifies him. 

But that doesn’t change the fact that Peter’s still a _boy,_ reckless and innocent and stupid and _young,_ nor does it change the fact that he’s seconds away from shattering entirely. 

God, this _fucking kid._

“Okay, listen to me for a sec,” Tony says, brushing his thumb over Peter’s throat. “Are you listening?”

The kid nods, taking another shaky breath. His voice is still weak as all hell, leaning into Tony’s touch in a way that’s too instinctive to be conscious. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening.”

Tony nods back, his expression intent. “Good, because this is important.” He ducks slightly to catch Peter’s eye. FRIDAY speaks up in his earpiece, quietly reminding him of Peter’s dropping blood pressure and increasing need for medical assistance, and Tony knows he’s gotta make this snappy before they have to rush him back to the compound. He waits for Peter to look at him again, and once the best eye contact they can establish is being maintained, he squeezes the back of his neck one more time, brief and gentle and reassuring. “We’re gonna figure this out, okay? We always do. This time’s not gonna be any different, you hear me?” His voice stays soft, insistent, confident but gentle. “We’re gonna figure this out.”

As if that was exactly what Peter needed to hear, Tony can just see how his expression crumples even through the mask, like the last, thin threads keeping him together were just severed entirely. “Okay,” he says, and the word comes out on a shadow of a sob. “Yeah, okay. Okay. Let’s go home.”

***

Tony holds himself together until he’s got the kid on the gurney, until they slip a needle under Peter’s skin and an oxygen mask over his face, until Cho herself gives him the nod that Peter’s well and truly knocked out and ready for surgery, until Tony can tell the surgeons in a low, careful voice about the situation they might be dealing with, until they wheel Peter into the operating theater and close the doors firmly behind them. 

Then the suit folds away, and he falls into a medbay waiting room chair. 

God. _God._ Potential paralysis. 

In the _kid._

Holy fucking _shit._

He leans forward so his elbows rest on his thighs, hands coming up to shove his hair away from his face, forehead head resting in his palms. Jesus, there’s so much he needs to do, and he has no idea what order to do it in. He needs to call May, he needs to call Pepper, he needs to do more research on spinal damage and paraplegics and the options they might have, he needs to get FRIDAY to explain how the surgery’s gonna go again so he can process and google the terms he doesn’t know, he needs to—

God, he needs to talk to Rhodey. 

Getting in a full breath is suddenly becoming harder now. 

He grinds his palms to his temples, trying to focus, trying to get it together and keep it that way before he gets ahead of himself. Hell, they don’t even know anything for sure yet. He’s completely jumping the gun on the panic front. This might not even be something they have to worry about. Peter was right, the numbness might have been caused by swelling or shock or blood constriction or any other number of obviously not good but overall harmless and reversible things, and it might all be a false alarm.

It also might not. 

Fuck, his hands are shaking. 

Alright. Alright, enough of that, and he knows it, releasing a shuddering exhale as his runs his hands through his hair a final time. Carefully, he pushes himself up to standing again, sliding his hands into his pockets to steady them in the empty waiting room. There’ll be time for all of this later. For right now, he’s gotta get his shit together and do all the shit he’s gotta before he has to deal with the shit that’s almost guaranteed to come after the surgery. Then he can lose his shit. 

But only then. 

Calling May comes first, he decides, after a moment. She needs to know, and the more time she has to get down to the compound and process what they might be facing here, the better off they’re gonna be. She deserves all the warning she can get with this one. 

He starts to pace the waiting room as he pulls out his phone, looks up May’s contact under his favorites tab. The motion helps— it curbs the nervous energy, provides an outlet for the tremors still running down his arms and the jittery feeling resting in his legs, distracts him just a little from his thoughts. It makes him feel like he’s _doing_ something, instead of just wasting time. Makes him feel productive. 

Because he told Peter that they’d make it through this, and he’s not going to forget that promise anytime soon.

He’s determined to make sure it stays true. 

God, he’s determined. 

***

After a while, Tony ends up on the floor. 

Once he makes the necessary calls, there’s not much for him to do other than research and wait, so he settles in. There’s a brief elevator trip to his floor to grab a tablet and some paper and then it’s back to the waiting room, getting comfortable in the chair he’d been occupying previously with Pepper’s Cheater glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and his phone waiting patiently on the armrest beside him.

Not even fifteen minutes later, he’s almost lost feeling in his legs from how he’s sitting and his back is screaming at him in a way that makes him feel like he should be getting ready for the early bird special before driving thirty over the speed limit all the way to the diner, so he adjusts. 

Good god, Peter might have had a point with that getting old comment. 

He finds himself sitting against the wall in a corner of the room, in the exact spot a wilting ficus used to occupy until about five minutes prior. His stuff surrounds him in a loose circle, all conveniently right in grabbing range. His fourth cup of coffee sits on the end table beside him, with enough distance between him and the unfortunately light mug to avoid knocking it over for the second time (a soaked paper towel marks the scene of the first), and Tony’s fingers tap restlessly on the edge of his tablet as he scrolls, one two three ring middle index, over and over, twitchy from the caffeine and antsy from the nerves, but he’s already keyed up enough that he barely notices the buzz.

And that’s how he continues, thumbing through his old notes and scribbling down new ones and gathering all the information he can on what they might be dealing with all while maintaining a messy kind of laser-focused intensity. He’s good at that, zoning on projects and tuning out everything else, and it does him well today. 

He’s already got quite a few articles and such printed up from when Rhodey was the one in the operating theater, dug up from the bottom of the workshop storage bins and a little dustier now but still fully functional, and they, complete with his jotted, annotated ideas and bright stripes of highlight, make up a good fraction of the array of supplies surrounding him. He reads and he thinks and he absorbs, quick and dirty and completely, entirely engaged, because he can’t let his mind wander farther than the edge of his page. 

Right now, no one wants that. 

No one really needs that, either.

The time passes quickly when he’s like this, which is another perk of zoning in on his research and tuning the rest of the world out. He focuses on the papers and screens and words in front of him and refuses to let himself think past them. This way, at least, he’s doing something worthwhile with his time.

Even if all of this is really just a refresher from the last time he set up camp in the corner of a medbay waiting room and buried himself in research about spinal damage and paralysis, he still feels productive. 

God, he can’t wait for Rhodey to get here from DC.

There’s so much he needs to talk to him about.

The wait ticks by as Tony digs deeper into the internet’s collection of research published since he last googled these terms, the time passing in seconds and minutes and hours in stunted leaps and hesitant bounds. And that’s how May finds him some undecided amount of time later, pausing in the doorway as his head snaps up up to greet her from where he’s huddled up on the floor in a nest of papers like the overly-caffeinated, mildly panicking, nerdy little gremlin he is, a cold cup of coffee in his hand asPepper’s glasses slide down his nose. 

“Hey,” he says, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“Hey yourself,” she returns, standing in the doorway of the waiting room. She takes a shaky inhale, tries on what might be a smile, sounding strained but steady. Her overnight bag, containing enough clothes for her and Peter to last them the few days they’ll likely be spending at the compound as he recovers, is over her shoulder, and her glasses are on the top of her head, holding back her hair. “Any updates?”

Tony sets down his tablet. “He’s still in surgery,” he says. He tries to stand, to walk her in, grab her bag, maybe even hug her, if the situation offers itself and he finds himself feeling sappy, but his joints protest like hell after spending so much time on the floor and he ends up having to go slower than he means to. “Everything’s going well, apparently, but there’s probably an hour or two to go still before we know anything for sure about —damn— about what comes next.”

“Wait, don’t get up,” she says, quickly, and he pauses midway through the motion. Slowly, he lowers himself back down as she starts in his direction, dropping her bag on the seat nearest to the door before shrugging out of her jacket and draping it on top. With a determined, set sort of firmness, she reaches for the chair beside him, offering him a small smile as she does that’s far too kind for the exhaustion beneath her eyes. “Just hand me a stack and I’ll join you. The research will go faster with the both of us working on it anyway.”

And god, Tony will never fail to be blown away by the pure feminine ferocity and incredible inner resolve of one May Parker.

He doesn’t know how she does it. 

Seriously, though. This woman was handed the news that her nephew, her _kid,_ is in emergency surgery for a gunshot wound right in prime vital organ range that may or may not result in permanent spinal damage and potential paralysis (and severe blood loss and potential internal damage to boot) yet here she is anyway. Calm as hell. Composed and organized and ready to learn. She’s worried, Tony knows— he’s been around her in situations like this one enough times to recognize the small signs, like the way she fidgets with the hair tie on her wrist, the way her foot taps against the floor tiles, the way she purses her lips every time she feels herself slipping. She’s concerned, he knows, way more than she’s letting herself express. But she puts it aside, because she knows that losing it isn’t going to do any good right now.

She puts it aside, because her nephew needs her to keep it together, not for her to fall apart. She can react later, when this is past. Until then, she’s going to be there for him, because that’s what she can do for him right now. 

God, she’s such a fucking awesome aunt.

Tony helps her to drag away the chair beside him before she sits down in its place, settling herself on the floor with her back against the wall and her legs crossed beneath her. She accepts the handful of paper Tony gives her and starts thumbing through it. “So what are we looking for?”

Tony sits back with her, picking up his tablet again. He bends his knees, props the tablet up against his thighs at an angle, refreshes the article he was working his way through before. “Anything that could be useful, really,” he says. “Anything you think could end up helping him.”

“Got it,” May says, firm and focused. She pulls her glasses out of her hair and slides them onto her face, already flipping to the first page of the first packet of the stack she’s got in her lap. “Let me know if you find something good, okay?”

“Only if you do the same for me.”

She looks up for just a moment, a small, grim smile of comradery gracing her expression. She reaches out and squeezes his knee, gentle and brief and reassuring as all hell. “Always.”

***

A few hours later, Tony’s starting to go downhill. 

While May is still entirely composed and focused despite the fact that it’s now past midnight and neither of them have slept a wink tonight, Tony lacks her kind of badassery, and he admittedly started to fade a while ago. His tablet has been turned off, his papers set aside, his dead phone charging across the room, and his head has long come to rest against the wall behind him, chin up and eyes tracing the sharp lines of the ceiling tiles, as precise and decided and certain as they are. Unfortunately, this kind of fading, the weary, stressed out, exhausted-but-too-tense-to-sleep kind of fading, really doesn’t do much in the ways of rest, and instead exists just to mess up his mind and make it a hell of a lot harder than necessary to focus. 

He could use some more coffee, but May cut off his caffeine supply a while back out of concerns for his health. He’s been sipping decaf since then. May said it would work the placebo effect, help him get some energy back without the drug, but so far, the placebo effect has done nothing other than proving itself as bullshit. 

God, he’s tired.

Usually, this would be incredibly weak in comparison to some of his normal, three-days-no-breaks workshop marathons of the past, but considering he’s barely slept since last Tuesday, he was already running on fumes by the time he got the call about Peter’s vitals. He can go for long periods of time, but considering this period is nearing its end, he’s starting to crash and he knows it.

However, when Helen Cho walks in those doors, he’s suddenly wide awake and then some. 

“Dr Cho,” May says, her nervousness evident in her tone but mostly hidden behind the smile she instantaneously offers, however strained it is. She pushes herself to standing as Helen approaches, stepping over their piles of papers to go and shake her hand. She’s already met Helen multiple times, considering Peter’s extracurricular activities paired with his complete and utter inability to take proper care of himself, but she’s always this professional despite it, her respect for the doctor clear in every interaction they have. “How are you?” 

Helen smiles, quick and professional but real. Tony, having moved to stand beside May as well after following her lead, catches the fondness in the action. Helen likes May, he knows after their last cocktail night following Peter’s most recent crash and burn moment, and despite Helen’s own obvious tiredness, she still stands tall and confident, her hands folded in front of her. “I’m fine,” she says, gentle but crisp, “and fortunately, so is Peter. The surgery went great.” 

Relief, warm and dizzying, crashes over Tony like a wave. 

There was never too much worry surrounding the surgery, but it’s still a giant alleviation to know that Peter made it through. Surgery can be a scary thing, never knowing what might happen under those sterile sheets or what complications may arise, so knowing that Peter’s okay is enough to lift a weight off Tony’s chest. 

Now, they just have to figure out what comes next. 

That’s kind of the tough part, Tony is gonna have to guess.

May presses her fingertips to her mouth, taking a shaky breath as she nods. “Thank god,” she whispers, nodding. “Thank _you._ I’m so glad to hear it.” 

“Hold on, there’s still more to talk about,” Helen says, kind but warning, steering the two of them towards the chairs edging the room. “Mind if we sit down?”

They end up in the chairs closest to the door, with May and Tony on one side and Helen at an angle to face them. She does look tired, but she’s focused all the same, smoothing the frazzled flyaways of her bun behind her ears as she sits down. 

“Before I start, you have to understand that there’s really no saying for sure about much of anything yet,” she says, watching them both carefully. “Things can still change. Nothing is concrete. Right now, we’re just going off of our assumptions.”

May nods, leaning forward in her chair with her forearms resting on her thighs and her expression lined with an exhausted kind of intent, her hair falling over her shoulders and mouth in a thin line of anticipation. “Of course, we understand.”

Helen nods, clasping her hands in her lap. “At the moment, it looks like Peter’s going to be dealing with some significant loss of function and feeling from just above the waist down. The bullet did, unfortunately, reach his spinal cord, and which led to a lower thoracic injury, at about the T-9 level.”

Tony’s breath catches in his throat. 

May, however, doesn’t hesitate. “What function will he have remaining?” 

“It’s hard to say right now. We’ll know for sure once he wakes up from the anesthesia, when we can test what feeling and function he has, but there is going to be some loss. It’s just a matter of how much.”

In a single flash of motion, May’s hand is suddenly clenched around Tony’s, the pressure sharp and hard and grounding as she squeezes his palm.

He squeezes back harder. 

“So you’re saying he could be entirely paralyzed from the waist down.” It’s a statement, not a question, but Tony still hopes she denies it. God, he hopes.

She doesn’t. 

She sighs, looking down in a way that gives away how exhausted she really is. “It’s a possibility,” she says, and the apology is tangible in her voice. “But you also have to understand, there’s so much that this isn’t going to change. Peter will still lead a healthy, full life no matter how severe the damage ends up being. You have so many options. It’s going to be a challenge, but he’s going to be okay.”

She’s right. Tony knows she’s right. 

He has more than enough experience with this situation already to know that she’s right. 

Still, he has to take a minute to remind himself of that. 

They’re already aware of most of the options they have considering the amount of research they’ve gotten done over the past few hours, but neither of them stop Helen as she starts to tell them about their choices. May listens intently, her expression wrecked but focused, but Tony finds himself tuning her out, trying to steady himself in the moment. 

He knows the kid will be okay, especially now that the main medical concerns appear to be out of the way. And even aside from the blood loss and internal damage to his vital organs, he knows that the kid will be fine, with time. For god’s sake, he has Rhodey for a best friend. He knows the kid’ll be alright. 

Still, the concern, worry, and straight up pity that’s currently flooding him is too strong to ignore. 

He’ll pull it together for when the kid needs him, for sure. By the time the kid wakes up and needs someone to lean on, Tony’s gonna be strong as a wall and about as yielding where it comes to making sure Peter gets through this. He’s positive about that if not anything else.

But for right now, he needs a minute to process.

So he sits there, quiet and focused, listens to Helen’s explanations, does his best to work through what he can, and keeps May’s hand within his own. 

***

The don’t speak, but the hospital room is anything but quiet. 

The heart monitor beeps at regular intervals, reassuring in its steadiness, while the hiss of oxygen and gentle whir of machines fill the gaps. A StarkPad rests on May’s lap where she sits at the far wall, facing the hospital bed, and soft clicks of the attached keyboard come as she continues to research, quiet but present. A speaker in the corner plays one of Peter’s spotify playlists at a low volume, loud enough to hear but soft enough to ignore. They figured out that last one during their last hospital room excapade— music, Peter’s music in particular, tends to keep the kid calm. 

Considering the last time Peter was conscious, Tony figures they can use any calming measure they can get for when he wakes up again. 

Not that they’re going to have to worry about that anytime soon, looking at him now. 

The poor kid is beat to hell, honestly. He’s as pale as she sheets that cover him, with a bulky, loud oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the dark green straps a stark contrast to his grey skin, and there it’ll stay until his oxygen levels graduate to cannula-acceptable numbers. His hair is tousled, curls flat against the pillow, and an IV cannula rests in the crook of his left arm while another line taped into the back of his right hand. Thick bandages cover his abdomen. 

Tony hasn’t moved from his bedside since they’ve gotten access to the room. He isn’t planning on moving anytime soon, either.

Nothing new there, he supposes.

May hasn’t wanted to talk in a while —she’s been far too deep in notetaking and Mayo Clinic articles for conversation— which has kept the room quiet recently, with the only conscious ones in the room being the two of them. More people should be getting here soon, just like they always do when Peter gets hurt and everyone consequently gets all worried and hovering like the overprotective adults they are. The only reason they haven’t arrived yet is the prior commitments they’re all currently trying to get out of. 

Pepper still has meetings to go to today, her first meeting of the day probably starting in just a few hours, so he doesn’t want to bother her when she’s getting some much-needed rest. She offered to cancel them all to stay with him and Peter, but he told her no— there’s nothing more she could do here than she could do in a conference room. 

Rhodey’s probably going to be leaving DC soon to get down here as well. Tony gave him a summary when he called him last night, and he knows Rhodey wants to be there for Peter as soon as possible. However, he’s also an important guy with genuine responsibilities to worry about, which means there was some work he had to do to get out of them before he could jump the government ship. Most of that finagle work has to wait until morning, of course, but he should be getting here sometime today. 

And Happy, perhaps the worst one of them all when it comes to Peter getting hurt, is already on his way back from his weekend out of town, cutting it short to come home early and be with the kid. 

Until then, though, it’s just Tony and May keeping vigil this cold October night-almost-morning, familiar and practiced a situation as it is. 

“You really should get some sleep.” 

His head snaps up to find May looking his way, her small smile knowing and sympathetic. Her StarkPad is now slipped back into her bag and her notebook is set aside, one leg pulled up onto the seat with her as she rests her chin on her knee, watching him in a way that’s exhausted but fond. “Seriously,” she says. “You haven’t gotten any yet, and Peter’s gonna need you at your best when he wakes up.”

“I could say the same to you,” he says, returning her smile the best he can. “You haven’t slept either.”

She shrugs. Her glasses are propped up on the top of her head again, holding her hair back. “I’m fine.” 

“That’s my line, but alright.” His gaze softens, just slightly. “You could get some rest. There’s a spare bed in here. It wouldn’t kill you to catch a few minutes, if you need a break.” 

She glances over at the empty bed, as if she might consider considering, but quickly looks back to Tony. “Nah. I’d rather wait it out, get some sleep once Peter’s woken up himself.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “And miss him when he really is awake, instead of taking advantage when he doesn’t know the difference?”

She looks mildly impressed at that. “Oh, you’re good.” 

“Honey, I’m the best.” 

She smiles again, slight but amused. “I guess you do have a point.” She looks back at the empty bed on the opposite side of the room. Her smile fades then, her mouth dropping into a thin line of concern, her brows drawing together even as she glances towards him again. “But you need the sleep too, Tony. I’ll take first shift with Pete if you want to catch an hour or two.” 

He shakes his head immediately. “I’m okay,” he says, and really, it’s true. He’s the one with practice at the whole sleep-deprived shebang, not her, and he knows that all this has been taking a toll. She needs it way more than he does right now. “Just take the opportunity to pass out for a while. No one will judge you for it, I swear.”

She hesitates for just a moment longer, but then sighs again, giving in. “Okay,” she says. “Fine. But you have to promise to wake me up the second anything changes, alright? Don’t let me sleep through anything important.” 

He smiles, brief and understanding. “I promise.” 

*** 

May ends up getting about eleven full minutes of sleep.

Around the beginning of minute twelve, Peter wakes up. 

By the end of minute sixteen, he goes under again, dragged back down by the lingering pull of the anesthesia and the remaining tiredness that comes with his healing factor’s reaction to heavy duty injuries like this.

Tony wakes May up for it, so she’s there to hold the kid’s hand and stroke his hair back, reassuring and present until he drifts off again. However, she’s still absolutely exhausted and her brief parody of a nap only seemed to make that worse, so Tony finally convinces her to go upstairs to the guest quarters long reserved for her and get some real sleep. He’ll come and get her if anything changes, he swears, but there’s probably going to be a few more of these false alarms, and she needs the rest. 

Eventually, she does. 

Tony sits back down and settles in to wait.

***

A few hours later, Peter wakes up for real. 

It’s slow at first, just like all the other times Peter’s woken up since the surgery as he came out of anesthesia. Each time has always been short and bleary, not anything all that insightful or even anything that Peter’s gonna remember by tonight, so when he begins to stir, Tony watches with a sense of calculated hope, careful but not too expectant. 

But then the kid’s forehead creases, confused and pained and alarmingly _aware,_ and Tony’s snaps back in fast as all hell. 

“Peter?” he says, not wanting to get his hopes up but already praying with everything he has that this is what he thinks it is. He squeezes the kid’s hand lightly, gentle and fast, watching his face with a nervous kind of anticipation. “Kid, can you hear me?”

His forehead creases again, eyes just barely cracking open against the light of the room. “Mr Stark?” he murmurs. 

A smile breaks out unbidden across Tony’s face. “Hey, buddy,” he whispers. He pulls the chair closer to the side of the bed so that his knees are touching the mattress, his hand still holding Peter’s. “Nice of you to join us.” 

Peter’s gaze slides over to Tony, tired and dazed, as he seems to try and figure out how he ended up in the medbay once again. There’s still a degree of bleariness in is eyes, slowing his thoughts and keeping things distant, but that’ll fade fast, and once it does, everything’s gonna come back just as quick. So Tony holds his hand tighter and waits, sweeping his thumb over the kid’s knuckles, as reassuring as he can be. 

Barely a few seconds later, it clicks, and instantaneously, Tony knows he remembers. 

Peter’s expression shifts just slightly, going from vague and confused to sharp and apprehensive in an instant, the already limited color he’s managed to scrounge up in the past few hours draining from his face. He freezes, eyes locked on Tony’s as if it's all he can do to keep himself anchored. 

“You remember what happened?” Tony asks, softly. 

“Yeah,” Peter breathes. 

Tony squeezes his hand harder, grounding him in the moment before he gets the chance to spiral. “Alright, easy, kid.” His gaze flickers to the monitors over the bed, noting the uptick in the heart and respiratory rates as the remembered panic returns. Tony’s free hand comes up to the kid’s wrist, two fingers resting over his pulse point in a way that’s both careful and hopefully comforting, meeting Peter’s eyes and keeping his expression determinedly neutral. “Take it slow, Pete. Easy.”

“I’m trying not to panic, but I really want to,” Peter whispers. “I— Mr _Stark—”_

“You’re okay, bud.”

“I want to talk to Dr Cho,” the kid finally gets out.

He glances at the clock sitting on the bedside table— it’s barely five AM, but as long as Helen’s awake, she should be available. “FRIDAY?”

“I’ve already taken the liberty of summoning Dr Cho, boss,” the AI says. “She’s on her way down from the guest floors now.” 

“Thanks.” He turns back to Peter, his thumb still sweeping over the back of the kid’s hand, careful of the IV. “She’s coming, kiddo. You want me to stay?”

Peter’s gaze flickers over to Tony. “Would you mind?”

“I’d mind a hell of a lot more if you kicked me out, so no, not at all.” He folds his arms on the edge of the mattress, taking his free hand from the kid’s wrist to instead reach up and push back the kid’s hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. Peter’s eyes close briefly at the contact. “Your aunt is upstairs, getting some sleep. You wanna get her down here too?”

Immediately, Peter shakes his head, firmly despite his weakness. “No, let her sleep. Knowing her, she needs it. I’ll… it’ll be fine.” 

Tony’s heart clenches at that, his forehead creasing in exasperated, concerned fondness as he squeezes his hand again, because fuck, this kid. 

“And so do you, so we’re going to make this quick.” Helen strides in through the open door with a small, pleasant smile, a clipboard under her arm. She’s washed her hair since Tony last saw her, and likely slept some— she looks far more alert than she did last night, or rather earlier this morning. “How are you feeling, Peter?” 

“Alright,” Peter says, his voice hoarse. He swallows hard, struggling to push himself up into a slightly less horizontal position, and Tony reaches to raise the upper half of the bed. He still doesn’t let go of the kid’s hand.

Tony can tell from the way Helen’s expression softens that she knows the kid’s lying, but she doesn’t call him out on it. “Then let's figure some of this other stuff out, if you’re up for it.” 

That’s another reason Tony likes Helen— she’s good at cutting through the shit, skipping the small talk and getting straight to the point. She doesn’t waste any more time, instead moving right into the examination, testing the function and feeling Peter has remaining. 

So, Tony settles himself at the head of the bed, perched on the edge of the mattress with one hand holding Peter’s and the other resting on the side of the kid’s neck, carefully keeping note of his pulse as Helen begins. He does his best to stay calm despite the wariness and apprehension flooding him, considering Peter’s senses and the way he’d pick up on Tony’s nerves in a second if he let them show, but the careful dread building in his stomach is too strong to ignore entirely. He pushes it down, but it’s _there,_ and Tony watches quietly with his forehead creased and mouth a thin line of worry. 

Because, really, it all comes down to this.

These tests Helen’s about to administer, their results are going to determine the rest of Peter’s life. What goes down in the next handful of minutes is both the confirmation and denial of everything they’ve been worrying about since Peter first got shot. It’s so simple, something as basic or trivial as Peter being able to move his legs, but it’s the first deciding factor in a long equation of undetermined results. This is it, Tony knows, and he braces himself for the worst. 

Watching Peter’s expression, Tony can tell that the kid’s doing the same. 

Helen starts the exam high and easy, making sure that he still has all function in his arms, hands, fingers. Thank god, he does. There’s no change there, and the relief that edges into Peter’s expression as she confirms it is almost enough to ease the tenseness in Tony’s chest. 

But then Helen moves lower. 

Carefully, standing beside the bed with a reassuring hand resting on Peter’s free wrist, she asks Peter if he can wiggle his toes. She asks him if he can bend his legs. She asks him if he can feel the tip of the pen she’s pressing to the bottom of his feet. 

Tony holds his breath. 

He lets it out slow and deliberate and careful when it becomes painfully apparent that Peter _can’t._

God, he can’t. 

Peter can’t do any of what Helen’s asking him to, can’t move his legs, can barely feel a thing below his waist. Tony takes careful, steady breaths at Peter’s side, pulling himself together before he even gives himself the chance to fall apart, keeping his thoughts in order and his emotions in check. They knew this was a possibility. God, they knew this was _likely._ There’s no real surprises here. 

Tony doesn’t think that it’s really a surprise for Peter, either, going off the complete and utter lack of reaction that comes across his face as he realizes it save for the barely audible exhale he releases, like a tiny confirmation to himself in the quiet of the room. 

The way his pulse is suddenly jackrabbiting against Tony’s fingers says differently, but he doesn’t call the kid out on it, just squeezes his hand tighter and brushes a reassuring thumb over the back of his neck. 

Tony stays perched on the edge of the mattress as Helen does her thing. Even as Helen finishes up, even as she starts on more or less the same spiel she gave May and Tony about paralysis and loss of function and options and, most importantly, about the quality of life that Peter will retain, even as Peter’s expression slowly but steadily goes from blank to strained, Tony stays, the kid warm and quiet beside him. 

This has already gotta be hard enough for him. Tony’s not going to let him go through it alone on top of it all. 

When Helen finishes, she sets a gentle hand on Peter’s shoulder before shooting a meaningful look Tony’s way, apologetic but understanding. “If you think of any questions, just let me know, okay?” she says. “I’m gonna give you guys a minute.” With that, she steps out, closing the door behind her. 

Tony keeps his thumb moving, gentle and light, across the nape of the kid’s neck as she leaves. Peter doesn’t move from the bed, his body limp and his expression stricken but his breathing steady, staring determinedly at the ceiling. Tony doesn’t move either, terrified to jar him, so painfully uncertain of what to say or what to do to make any of this even a little bit easier to take in. All of it will get better with some time, he knows, but right now, he also knows the kid’s gotta be struggling. 

Even now, it comes back to Peter doing his best to push down his fear, his panic, trying so hard to be stoic even in the face of something as drastically life-changing as this. The kid swallows hard, refusing to meet Tony’s eyes, keeping it in and stifling any reaction he might have even with just the two of them in the silent hospital room.

Carefully, finally, Tony squeezes his hand again, gentle but present.

“Kid?” he says, gently. 

Peter blinks, taking a careful inhale. “Could you leave?” 

Tony can’t say he wasn’t expecting it, but he hesitates anyway. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea—“

“Please, Mr Stark,” Peter whispers, and for just a second, Tony sees his resolve falter. His gaze flickers over to meet Tony’s then, finally, with a certain note of desperation in his expression that he was lacking before. “Just for like, five minutes. I just need five minutes.” He swallows hard, a hint of pleading leaking into his voice. “Please.” 

Tony finds himself nodding almost automatically, because really, he recognizes that look in Peter’s eyes. It’s the look of a kid needing to run away. Tony knows it well enough. It’s the look of a kid in desperate need of having a moment to himself, to process and think and react in ways that he can only do alone, without anyone else hovering over his shoulder. If they were in any other situation, Peter would already be down the hall and on his way up to his room, but in this situation, he’s gotta ask Tony to do it for him. 

So Tony nods, because out of all the things the kid probably needs from him right now, this one thing is something he can give him. “Okay,” he says, soft and understanding. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.” 

He does as he says and steps into the hall, closing the door behind him. He sets his phone alarm for five minutes. 

And with that, he collapses back against the wall beside the door frame, and finally takes the chance to react himself. 

Christ, the kid’s paralyzed. 

Oh, _god._

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose, his shoulders pressed hard into the wall behind him as he tries to keep his hands from shaking. God, Peter’s paralyzed. They always knew this could happen, and if he’s being honest with himself, he’s long braced himself for this possibility, but there’s something distinctly different about the confirmation compared to the speculation. 

Because, really, the _idea_ of the kid never walking unassisted again is one thing.

The kid actually never walking unassisted again is another entirely. 

Fuck, he’s gotta get it together. 

He finds himself sliding down the wall, landing heavily on the ground directly beside the door to the hospital room. He keeps his legs folded up to his chest, forehead resting on his knees as he goes through the motions of a few deep breaths, gathering himself before the pieces can scatter out of reach. This isn’t the end of everything in any respect. Peter’s still got a fucking awesome life ahead of him, filled with potential and possibilities and beautiful things, and the fact that he’s going to be living it from a wheelchair doesn’t change any of it. 

It’ll be different, sure. Things are going to have to adjust a bit. But, really, that part isn't going to be all that hard, not in the long run. They’ll fix the elevator in May’s apartment building, they’ll upgrade the suit, they’ll add as many handicap-accommodating features to the compound as they can fit. They’ll figure it all out. 

The second Peter’s ready to embrace it, they’ll have his new life ready for him. 

And until then, together, they’ll make sure he’s okay all the same. Tony knows they will.

Shit, it sounds so much easier in theory. 

Still, he has to remind himself, this really doesn’t mean that much. Peter’s lost the use of his legs, but god, so did Rhodey, and they made it through that. With all the technology they have available to them these days, they have every resource to help the kid through this, to make his new normal as great as his old one. Paralysis doesn’t mark the end of the kid’s life. It just marks the beginning of a changed one. 

Tony knows they’ll get the kid through this, him and May and Rhodey and Pepper and Happy and Helen and anyone else who wants a piece of the action, because that’s what they’re good at. That’s what they’ve been doing for this kid from the moment they’ve all met him. They’ve cheered him on through the good parts and carried him through the bad and made sure he’s stayed okay through it all, again and again and again, through AP classes and blood loss and friend drama and missions gone wrong, and by now, they’ve got it down to a fucking science. They’ve somehow managed this kid afloat so far. 

This storm might be one of the bigger ones they’ve encountered, but there’s no way they’re going to let the kid sink now.

Tony’s positive of that if not anything else. 

***

Over the next few minutes, Tony stays sitting on the floor, watching his timer tick down and tapping his fingers restlessly on the knee of his jeans as he waits.

He hopes the kid’s doing okay in there. 

If Tony needed a moment to process, then god, he can’t even begin to imagine what’s going through Peter’s mind right now. The shock, the panic, the disbelief, it’s gotta be flooding him like all hell right now. He knows Peter needed a moment alone, he gets it, but god, he wishes he was back in there now. He just doesn’t want the kid to be by himself. 

At four minutes, thirty-seven seconds, he hears the first sob. 

And yeah, that’s it. 

He shoves himself up from the floor, slipping his phone back into his pocket and reaching for the door. He grabs the handle, ready to let himself in, before he pauses. 

Peter asked him to leave. He asked him for privacy, and a moment alone, and going in early would be violating that request. The kid needs the chance to react without Tony there to bear witness, and if this is how he needs to process, then Tony’s gotta respect it. 

So he stands there and waits for the remaining twenty-three seconds, his forehead pressed to the wood and his hand tight around the handle, listening to Peter’s strangled, suppressed breakdown and as he counts down the instants and resents every last one of them. 

He’s already opening the door by the time his alarm dings in finale. 

He pauses in the doorframe for a moment, taking the scene in at a glance. Peter’s propped up in the bed, shaking as hard as a leaf in the wind with one hand pressed over his mouth, trying to stifle the sobs that are quickly gaining intensity. He looks up as Tony enters, and his expression only crumples further, like seeing him only worsens what must be going through his head right now, like seeing him only makes it that much more real. 

“Oh, kiddo,” Tony murmurs. “Can I—”

The kid nods, shaky and shuddering. “Yeah,” he croaks, his voice breaking on the shadow of another sob. 

Tony crosses the room in an instant and kicks off his shoes before sliding in beside the kid in the bed, endlessly cautious not to jar him but not hesitating to wrap an arm around his shoulders all the same. There’s really not enough room for the both of them in here even with Peter being as much of a shrimp as he is, but they make it work all the same, Peter curling into his side as Tony settles himself on top of the stiff sheets, getting as comfortable as they can despite the cramped circumstances. 

He doesn’t try to talk, doesn’t attempt to comfort or reassure in any verbal terms, because that’s clearly not what Peter needs right now. So, instead, he just sits there, quiet and warm and present, letting the kid unload. He’s still trembling like all hell under Tony’s arm. 

“I can’t walk,” Peter finally says instead, breaking the silence for him, stuttering and strangled as his voice is, barely able to get it out between the sobs still racking his frame. “Mr Stark, I can’t— oh god, I can’t—”

“Shh, kid,” Tony whispers in return, gentle and understanding, patient through it all. He reaches up to run a hand through the kid’s hair. His sobs only seem to come harder at that, his face pressed into Tony’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Peter. I’m here, bud. I’m right here.” Before he can think better of it, he presses a kiss to the top of Peter’s head, holding him tighter to his side. “I’m right here.”

***

He sits with the kid, soothing and present, until Peter passes out again, the exhaustion from the breakdown and lingering drugs dragging him back down fast and hard.And even then, he doesn’t risk moving except for reaching over to grab his StarkPad off the bedside table. 

Even asleep, he doesn’t want the kid to be alone right now. 

May’s gonna kill him when she finds out she let her sleep through this, but Peter was right when he said she needed it, and honestly, the kid probably wouldn’t have reacted the same way if she was there too. He spends so much time and effort trying not stress her out, trying not to worry her— it’s why he texts Tony every time he gets a concussion instead of bothering her with it, why he used to stitch himself up on a weekly basis before Germany and clean up the blood himself, why he once spent two days alone with a 103 degree fever when she was out of town for the weekend and before Tony found out. He knew he was sick when she left, but he didn’t want her to worry while she was gone, so he sucked it up until he passed out on his bathroom floor on that Sunday morning and FRIDAY’s Man Down Protocol was finally initiated.

But with Tony, the same restrictions don’t seem to apply. 

He’s not sure why, actually, but the kid doesn’t seem to censor himself as much around him as he does with May. Peter lets Tony see it all. And despite the fact that it baffles him, he appreciates it in the same sense, because with this life, God knows the kid needs someone to be vulnerable around.

They’ll catch May up later. For now, Tony’s alright with it just being the two of them. 

He keeps an arm around the kid even as he opens the StarkPad, propping it open on his lap and pulling up his design app. He’s going to be here for a while, he’s pretty sure, so he might as well get some work done while he’s at it. The kid sighs in his sleep, his breath warm against Tony’s t-shirt.

God, he really has gone through the wringer today.

Tony rubs the kid’s shoulder gently as he settles again, soft and warm and heavy on Tony’s side. The monitors still beep, and the oxygen still hisses, but there’s a certain kind of peace to the room nonetheless, quiet and undisturbed. Tony’s glad for it. Both of them could use the breather. 

Tomorrow will be better, he knows. Today has sucked, yeah, but by the time Peter has had the chance to process and Rhodey and Happy and Pepper arrive and May gets the rundown of everything necessary, things are going to be on the upswing. It’s coming. This part is hard, but the good stuff, the better stuff, is on its way. 

They’ll get there.

In the meantime, Tony starts poking around docs on his StarkPad, trying to find something to work on. His suit could use some upgrades, and he’s been working on the next generation of Rhodey’s braces for months now, so either of those could probably use it. However, he finds himself opening a new document instead, moving nearly on autopilot. 

Somehow, the entire concept is already at the forefront of his mind. 

He’s just gotta get it down on paper now, his hands moving just slowly enough that he doesn’t jar the kid but keeping up with his mind all the same, squinting at the screen as he puts parts and pieces and ideas together to form something like a whole ass project, still sketchy but possible all the same. It’ll take some work to put it together, and it’ll take some research too, but he can do it. He’ll be able to make this work. 

Quietly, he starts the designs for Peter’s wheelchair, working in the silence of the hospital room with his forehead creased in concentration and the kid asleep against his side.

Just beyond the window, the sun begins to rise.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story of a series with likely two more stories coming, because there’s so much more I want to explore within this verse and I couldn’t fit it all into one fic. So, if you’d like to see more of this, please let me know by leaving me a kudos or a comment, because it really does help me to figure out if anybody would be interested in reading. :) thanks, guys. 
> 
> (Also, just so you guys know, this series, and this story, by extension, is going to have a happy ending. I’m not about harsh, depresso stuff. I didn’t want to rush the recovery process, so there was more of a tentatively hopeful ending with this installment, but I promise you, there’s a genuine happy ending coming. We’ll get there ;D)
> 
> Thank you so, so much for reading, and have an absolutely epic day. <3


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